Expansion of Pittman Robertson act and role of media in conservation

[RobG]

So the argument against mountain bikes is we grandfathered in horses, grazing and landing strips but we can't change anything today because its a slippery slope. So by that logic generational changes in values have no place in our political system?

More than 30 years ago my dad and I were flying over the Bob Marshall when we spotted a float plane on Big Salmon Lake. We called it in and he got busted. Truth is, he was having less impact than horses or even hikers, but the wildernesses were set aside so people could get away from technology and modern gizmos. Much of that means not using mechanical advantages that cheapen this experience or that give the other users an experience that is not consistent with the historical wilderness experience.

 

[Straight Arrow]

So the argument against mountain bikes is we grandfathered in horses, grazing and landing strips

No it is not. You are not understanding the issue. There are those (including backcountry horseman) who advocate against using horses when trails are fragile. There are those who are opposed to grazing on USFS ... but I thought we were discussing Wilderness Areas ... confusion again regarding backcountry versus Wilderness. There are also movements to eliminate aircraft usage in Wilderness. Those historical uses are not expressed as an argument for mechanical limitations in Wilderness. It was merely explained how they came to be.

ATVs were mentioned because there is a similar advocacy parallel to yours that wants ATV and motorcycle access to Wilderness.

And, again, there is much opportunity presently for bikes and ATVs on US Forest and BLM. Your efforts would be more productively spent advocating for revisions to USFS and BLM travel plans to open more trails to bikes. (As an example of support of mountain biking on USFS lands, a local Bozeman, MT, bike organization worked with the Gallatin National Forest and constructed a really cool mountain bike trail up Leverich Canyon trail, a beautiful fun area to bike. You will get much more traction, pun intended, working on such a project for biking as opposed to fighting Wilderness advocates for biking in designated Wilderness Areas.)

The well-organized and highly funded organizations such as the Continental Divide Trails System, the Bob Wilderness Foundation, and others will continue to strongly oppose bikes or any other mechanized equipment in the designated Wilderness Areas. If anything, I think generational changes will be more supportive of protecting real Wilderness, than reducing restrictions so every special interest can have their way. I expect future limitations to horseback usage, as well as backpacking and camping in some of the Wilderness Areas which are becoming "loved" to destruction.

 

[Nameless Range]

Having said that, I think that there is room for everyone when it comes to public land management and a good example is the Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act which created a new designation called a Conservation Management Area that still allows for MB use. The Heritage Act also specifically calls on the Lewis & Clark forest to conduct a study to identify new possible bike routes, recognizing that MB's are a legitimate use of public lands, and the need to expand opportunity where it makes sense. This approach has been supported by IMBA & MMBA.

I agree with this very much. New Wilderness is largely dead, and perhaps rightly so, because it excludes one of the fastest growing outdoor sports in the U.S. - that being mountain biking. It's why NREPA is stone dead.

Mountain bikers don't want to ride on the same roads as ATVs and frankly they shouldn't have to. So currently, when it comes to big chunks of land to do long biking treks, they are limited to what is currently Inventoried Roadless. We really do need a permanent designation that mimics Inventoried Roadless management and the Conservation Management Areas in the Heritage Act did that beautifully. If you want to see a well-thought-out Wilderness bill, check out the maps for the Heritage Act, or in my opinion even better check out the FJRA maps (those have a similar classification in Recreation Management Areas). When I review those maps I see a ton of thought and nuance, and it's a shame. We would have permanent protection for a lot of what is currently Inventoried Roadless(which I see as somewhat in limbo), and we would have 660,000 acres of new wilderness. All the while recognizing the interests of Motorized and Mountain bike users alike.

I believe we have to give mountain bikers there fair shake. They could be a huge and growing advocate to public lands.I don't mountain bike but know well people active in their advocacy and they are definitely not fans of Wilderness, or more specifically the MWA. I don't think they should be in Wilderness simply because they could cruise from one end of the Bob to the other in nearly a day. Their impact would be too fast. That said, they certainly don't effect trails nearly as much as horses. Sure there are ruts in the South Hills, but if horses were allowed up there those trails would be 3 times as wide and 2 foot deep in chit, like so many of the trails on the Front and up the Blackfoot.

Great Podcast again. Though hunters like to point out the greatness of Pittman-Robertson, it would be disingenuous to take all the credit for it, while pointing at non-consumptive users saying, "pay your fair share". For if PR did not currently exist, it would have a snowball's chance of coming to fruition in the modern contingency that are Hunters. People'd be whining about taxes, and gubmint, and waste, before they'd ever tax themselves, even for a good cause. As pointed out in the podcast, we are living in the golden days on the hard working backs of yesteryear. That is an important perspective, maybe the most important.

 

[Ben Lamb]

I believe we have to give mountain bikers there fair shake. They could be a huge and growing advocate to public lands.I don't mountain bike but know well people active in their advocacy ...

Very much this.

 

[Nunyacreek]

I would reiterate the idea that no mountain bikes in designated wilderness is a qualitative standard not a quantitative one. We are not comparing trail degradation of bikes vs. stock, we are comparing experiences. In a general way, wilderness is used in a manner consistent with its use for the last 500 years. That use did not include bicycles ( or sat phones.... or always smokeless powder) . Nonetheless,,mechanization and the state of the art circa 1964 were chosen as emblematic of an area "untrammeled by man." Whether the original drafters got it right on the sliding scale of technology is debatable but I think they did.
By the way, I'd like to see numbers illustrating where light aircraft ownership is cheaper than a horse... In addition to the fact that a cheap horse and mediocre equine care will generally be good enough. Take a cheap airplane mediocre maintenance and you end up dead.

 

[Straight Arrow]

The context of the equine vs aeronautical comparison somehow has changed into an ownership comparison, which is a completely different situation cost-wise and logistically. The original statement referred to the cost of having a horse outfitter pack you in and pack you out for hunting versus being flown into somewhere like the Durfee Hills to hunt and then be flown out.